The project GREENZO’s main objective is the development and testing on the pre-industrial scale of a pilot plant that will allow to obtain Zinc oxide from non-ferrous metal waste like Zamak. Its use will be tested in two industrial sectors: rubber manufacturing and catalysis chemical processes. With this action we will achieve the waste recovery in Zamak transformation industrial processes in products with high usability.

The implementation process will go as follows: design, development and tune-up of the pre-industrial pilot plant. The demonstrators in the above-mentioned industrial applications will be developed and validated with the Zinc oxide.

Nowadays there are not any processes that allow the extraction of Zinc oxide on the industrial scale with this waste origin. Zamaks’s recycling is normally used to produce second-class ingots, generating harmful air emissions. However, processors find it more profitable to deposit this waste in controlled landfill sites, generating a great amount of waste whose potential resources will be wasted.

Currently, Zinc oxide can only be obtained from zincite, a nature-derived mineral. With this project, we will obtain it from an industrial waste, in a compact pilot plant without air emissions and reducing the use of non-renewable resources, which will tackle various environmental problems. This is why we also want to carry out a wide dissemination of the results of the project.

This project is funded by the European Commission through the instrument LIFE13 ENV/ES/000173, it is coordinated by AIJU and has the participation of ITQ-CSIC, WORTEUROPE and Cauchos KAREY.